“I don’t have a problem with separate but equal. It’s just that this isn’t equal,” said Ruben Hopkins, 43, a financial analyst, who is black.

Huh? The article is about segregation in Milwaukee. It seems to imply that prejudice from the white population is keeping blacks away (probably somewhat true), but note this one sentence:

In the city too, they remain in traditionally black neighborhoods north of the Menomonee River. Whites live in the south, joined by a growing number of Latino and Asian immigrants.

Those articles titled “America in black & white,” should be retitled “America in black & non-black,” because the irrational white hatred of the colored seems to fall disproportionately on African-Americans. Why? See below:

Woodrow Reed, now a middle-age car mechanic, crossed the river on those marches as a defiant black teen. He is proud, even now, of the victory. But he has long since retreated to what he calls “the heart of the ‘hood.”He does not stray south of the river, does not cross the wasteland of the Menomonee River Valley, with its tangle of railroad tracks and old brick smokestacks. He stays where he feels comfortable.

“I’m back where I came from,” Reed said.

Update:

“I have a question for Truth Teller, is it THEORETICALLY possible for someone to honestly believe in HBD things like genetic differences in IQ among races and not be racist?Posted by -R at December 31, 2002 07:36 PM “

“Of course not, fool. The fact someone would rush to claim racial superiority is in itself evidence of racism since there is no support for that belief. Your belief in white supremacy is no different than the Raelians belief in extraterrestial seeding. There is no evidence of either, but the adherents believe because they want to.Posted by Truth Teller at December 31, 2002 08:08 PM “

For what it’s worth, I believe that one need not be racist (and use normative language like “superior” and “inferior”) and still accept human biodiversity. I also think one can be reasonable in expressing skepticism while still taking in the facts that are out there. Some who post on the message board are clearly human biodiversity skeptics, but they don’t go around saying “Dodo” and “Fool” to whoever disagrees with them because their position is so obviously correct.

20 Comments

And the Mayor “blames the outlying suburbs for not building low-cost housing.” Apparently as mayor of Milwaukee he’s unable to improve the city enough so that whites want to live there. Instead of blaming crime-prone, blame the suburbs!

I don’t have the exact citation, but I remember a few years ago some sociologists did a simple study, which combined two factors. First, with some simple models they showed that small personal preferences could result in self-segregation. (Basically, if whites and blacks each have a small preference for living with their own race, then you get self-organization with the two colors seperating, without any real discrimination.)

Then they interviewd a bunch of people and found that actual preferences were far over the levels needed to produce segregation. I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like “Blacks didn’t feel comfortable moving into a neighborhood that wasn’t at least 50% Black, while whites didn’t like moving into a neighborhood that was more than 30% black.” Don’t quote me on the numbers, but the basic point is that indiciduals basic preferences combine to naturally result in racial segregation in housing, without any explicit racism involved.

Whites will move into a black neighborhood as long as the neighborhood is gentrifying. For example, the historic Uptown area of Dallas (just north of the Federal Reserve) used to be all black until the early ’80s. Then the family that founded the 7-11 Corporation bought a lot of land to the north of Uptown. This began a process of gentrification which continues until today. Hardly any blacks now live in the old neighborhood.

The fundamental issue is people’s personal preferences driving all this segregation. This problem simply cannot be solved by govt intervention as long as we live in a republic. This article simply re-hashed what was already known.

Aparently, there is a requirement in the NFL that an owner has to officially consider a minority candidate when hiring a coach. Dennis Green was later reported to be concerneed that he was just interviewed to satisfy the requirement. I guess this is a no win situation if you are an owner in the NFL. Legislating preferences is so tedious.

The problem is that black areas are automatically considered “no go” whereas Asian or Italian neighborhoods are perceived as colorful and welcoming to tourists, or in the case of Jewish neighborhoods, a good place to raise kids (“the schools are good”). If anyone can give me an example where “Africa-town” is considered a tourist attraction, or a welcome place to send your kids to school, let me know.

We are beginning to develop African (as opposed to African-American) ‘hoods in NYC; maybe they will become tourist meccas. That remains to be seen.

Most of the posts on this thread are merely rationalizations for residential segregation under the rubric ‘everyone likes it that way.’ The everyone being racists like themselves. People who are actually interested in an integrated society look at income as the main criterion of whether a housing market is nondiscriminatory. If nonwhites of the same income levels as whites are not buying homes in the same areas then there probably is institutional or subjective discrimination going on. I say nonwhites because the data on Hispanics and Asians is being misrepresented here. (It often is because Razib hates the people he most resembles — African-Americans — and will say anything, no matter how false, to demean them.) The article says Hispanics and Asians are ‘beginning’ to move into white areas, which means most still live in segregated areas. In reality, there has been an enormous culture clash between the Hmong and the mainstream there.

As for Dodo Diana’s claim that ‘Africa-towns’ have never attracted whites as tourists, utter B.S. How does she think Harlem got its reputation for heaven’s sakes? Nor was it an anomaly. Black communities in most cities long drew whites for entertainment, especially music.

One wishes some people would spend their time reading the excellent mainstream literature of America’s true mixed culture instead of the moldy, discredited treatises of scientific racists.

The whites don’t like the blacks, and the blacks don’t like whites. So they don’t live near each other.

I went to a majority white high school near the South Side. We went to a track meet on the North Side. The black kids in the ‘hood threw rocks at our bus.

I remember winning a chess tournament–I beat a black kid to do it. The black guy said that I won just because I’m a white boy (I looked white enough to him). Like that made any difference. I beat him because I was better.

this is the crap blacks and whites deal with in Milwaukee. Both sides know it. The real news is that the black guy’s comments made it into the article (he stays where he feels comfortable). That’s how everyone does it. If you’re a white guy in that ‘hood, you’re mugged, carjacked or worse. If you’re a black guy in the white side of town, you’re harassed and shunned.

Truth Teller should check out Prince George’s County, Maryland. It’s widely cited by “experts” as being a black utopia. Some have even called it a “golden ghetto” because of the large number of blacks in the middle class.

They are wrong. The public schools in the county suck, and violent crime is on the rise countywide. And, of course, most of the violent crime is perpetrated by blacks against blacks, as well as Third World immigrants.

Determined to force your bigotries into being fact, but it can’t be done.

Harlem and other inner city entertainment districts thrived well into the ’70s. They went into decline during the movement of middle-class people of all ‘races’ to the suburbs. However, they have been reviving with the return of the middle-class to downtowns and exurbs. Some regions, especially the West and Pacific Northwest, are more residentially integrated than ever, with nonwhites moving to the suburbs and whites moving into the city. That’s the reality the U.S. Census reveals, not the racism motivated nonsense you people post.

Diana, you are either a dunce or one hell of a liar. What will you do for an encore — belittle a lovely little African-American ballerina for not having straight hair?

Roger, I will believe what you say when you offer some objective data supporting it. Until then, considering this is a racist site, I suspect you are as tainted as the other people on this thread.

David sounds like another wannabe white person who hates black people. Why am I not surprised?

Razib, lemme guess Litt- I mean Truth Teller’s response to anything you (or anyone else he disagrees with) have to say:
“The article is racist. The writer of the article is racist. Anyone who believes in facts that are contrary to my opinions is obviously racist.”

I have a question for Truth Teller, is it THEORETICALLY possible for someone to honestly believe in HBD things like genetic differences in IQ among races and not be racist?

Of course not, fool. The fact someone would rush to claim racial superiority is in itself evidence of racism since there is no support for that belief. Your belief in white supremacy is no different than the Raelians belief in extraterrestial seeding. There is no evidence of either, but the adherents believe because they want to.

Some in the mental health field believe racism is often a system of mental illness because it relies on obsession, paranoia, projection and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They may be on to something.

Truth Teller is more than welcome to read the Washington Post online, and then come to his own conclusions.

Better yet, he can do his own due diligence. Go to the following link, and choose Prince George’s County from the School Survey map. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/education/. The county’s public schools are atrocious. They are so bad that the county now has more than 100 private and parochial schools.

Face it, Truth Teller, IQ is important, it can be measured, and blacks, ON AVERAGE, have lower IQs than other races.

Harlem was never an “inner city entertainment district.” It was a mixed neighborhood until WWII, when it became predominantly black. The entertainment district of NYC is the theatre district, in the West 40s. There were a few entertainment emporiums in Harlem–very popular with people of all races–but whites abandoned them by the late 30s. Calling Harlem an “entertainment district” makes as much sense as calling Chinatown an “entertainment district” because it has Chinese operas and cinemas.

Of course, people of all races visit Chinatown. Not too many blacks, though. It’s always struck me as a curious fact: why, when you visit Chinatown, do you see comparatively few black faces. Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, supply a reason?

thrived well into the ’70s.

Nope. You are 20 years out of date. When I went to high school in the 70s, there was one boy who trucked to Queens from Harlem. He was a Yugoslavian immigrant and his parents lived in Harlem. Whenever he told the other students that, they were dumbstruck. The reaction was esp. true of black students (my HS was at least 25% black.)

They went into decline during the movement of middle-class people of all ‘races’ to the suburbs.

However, they have been reviving with the return of the middle-class to downtowns and exurbs.

Yes, Harlem is now “reviving” because a lot of black yuppies, and whites, are moving back in. I think also that Asian entrepreneurship is playing an unsung part here.

As for my encore, I didn’t create the fact that ballet is a white, patriarchal, European art form that oppresses both women (fragile, pale, skinny women dancing supernatural creatures on painfully distended toes) and righteous persons of color. What it is, man. It’s a strange and formalized art form with its own traditions.

The African-American girl playing Clara in the Nutcracker (a Christmas, and therefore anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish, tale) is a true African-American, being Ethiopian-born. She already has fairly loose hair. But an African or African-American with tightly curly or frizzy hair who wants to be a ballerina will have to undergo radical chemical processing of the hair in order to be part of the sisterhood. I’ve heard and read that it’s terribly painful. OK, that’s her choice, but isn’t that what black militants for at least 30 years have decried as “oreoization”?

Fine with me, if a black girl wants to become an oreo to become some 19th century white man’s ideal of beauty, but not with all the theorists of black pride that I have read. Modern ballets have moved somewhat outside the 19th century limits of what a ballerina is but–they still do that hair tossing business an awful lot. Deal with it.

Truth teller, what kind of response is that? I’m a wannabe white person? Whatever. I’m mostly white, everybody who’s been reading the site for awhile knows that. If I hated black people, I’d hate my grandmother, her brothers, and their kids (my cousins).

I’m the one “telling the truth.” Milwaukee is, and always has been, a heavily segregated city where the races don’t mix readily. And the reason isn’t solely white people hating blacks–blacks do plenty of whitey-hating themselves.

How do I know this? I lived there for 15 years, including all of grade school and high school.

Have you ever been to Milwaukee? Lived there for any amount of time? Until then, you can kiss my rather pale posterior.